Discover Yourself Through Photography

I recently landed a copy of this 1971 book by Ralph Hattersley. His idea is that the aim of

the process of photography can be one of self-discovery, rather than one of

documentation or creativity. His ideas are digested from Jung, Gurdjeiff, and the broad

outlines of Christianity. Indeed, he characterizes the process as religious in nature.

This may be off-putting, but if you've ever 'wondered...what's going on...down under'

(apologies to CSN) there are concise descriptions of how, as we attempt to do one thing,

we're often doing another that we can't perceive.

You will not get much from this book unless you are willing to admit that your everyday

identity and actions are just the tip of the iceberg. And that that tip firmly believes that it

is the whole iceberg. Not!

Enough metaphors. If you are drawn to photography, or any other process like it, and can't

really pin down why, this book could be an eye-opener. If you deplore navel-gazing, well

its just not for you.

So, and he writes a book to discover himself? Or is that for living?

It's art. Art has always been a vehicle for self-expression and discovery. If fact, many artists - musicians, photographers, etc., often mention this in interviews.

I hope this book will explain why my best photos I stubled upon by accident, and the ones I painstakinly plan ahead for just don't turn out the way I....well, I guess....plan.

Collective unconscious....

I hope this book will explain why my best photos I stumbled upon by accident, and the ones I painstakinly plan ahead for just don't turn out the way I....well, I guess....plan.

Collective unconscious....

Ralph Hattersley was a long time, highly respected Professor of Photography at Rochester Institute of Technology. His tenure there might have overlapped Minor White's tenure at RIT.

Hattersley taught at RIT as well as Minor White in the early 60's. It's amazing to me that

these two were there. When I arrived in 1966, there was a creative program along with the

'professional' program (weddings, portraits, etc) and a photo-science major. The creative

program was called Photo Illustration and the goal was not self-discovery but making it

big, preferably in NYC.

Hi, here are my thoughts on the matter, I am responding to the thread because I feel it is my right to do so.

 

In my mind Chrisitanity and Jungian psychology etc. have absolutely nothing to with photography or real life itself whatsoever.

 

In fact the idea that we can do anything exept sleep and dream 'unconciously', is in my mind totally absurd. Hypnosis may be 'unconcious' but it dosen'y make for good photographs.

 

If you are talking about 'automatic thoughts' or subliminal perceptions, fine, but I can't see the point. Some people say a Coke ad. photo sells billions because of the subliminal side, it is red and big and so people subconciously relate to the product and buy it. Personally I would love to disagree, not because I am disagreeable, but because I don't drink Coke! For me the idea that Red as a colour is more powerful has yet to be proven by reason.

 

I think the whole iceberg is do-able, it just takes some

(a lot of) imagination. I deplore the idea that someone else could find that iceberg for me! Metaphoric speech is fine. (I am an Atheist)

 

 

Perhaps the book mentioned is for some who are still searching for their icebergs, but I am not one of them, I'd rather find my own iceberg. Of course, I can discover that iceberg and also myself through photography. Myself is not an unknown, it is an ongoing proccess that is shaped by what I do, in the decisive moment at which I do it.

 

Navel gazing is fine, and it is best done whilst awake and concious.

 

Cheers.

The idea is not that someone can find your personal unknown for you. The book is a

digest and adaptation of techniques based on theory, both ancient and contemporary. A

book of suggested procedures along with apocryphal examples.

 

Now scientists believed atoms existed long before one was imaged. Astronomers find

black holes that can't be directly apprehended. Its all based on indirect evidence and

calculations that point to an unknown that must be behaving in a certain way. The proof of

the pudding is the usefulness of the system that develops out of the theory.

 

The iceberg underneath the surface is very much the id of the infant one once was. I take

care of three infants about 20 or so hours a week. It is an article of faith to me that the

process by which children are made competent to be effective civil and family role players,

a process that is indespensable to the continuation of civilization, is so new in human

history that serious perceptual distortions have taken place.

 

All of this, though, is really food for the introspective ones among us. The contemplators.

The exercises in this book are for helping those with certain questions to find reliable

ways of listening to the indirect rumblings of the under-water mass. If people feel they

were helped by it, they pursue it. If not, they do something else. Both fine with me.

 

I want to clear up one misconception that you might have. There's no dream or other-like

aspect to it. Your description, Ben of an ongoing process (that you are awake to) that is

shaped by what you do describes the desired set-up anyway.

Everything is the tip of an iceberg, especially our attempts to give meaning to the practice of photography. Another subterranean image worth working with is that of the volcano. Again, it hides its real expressive power and only reveals itself on special occasions.

 

I believe that we move in and out of the various levels of consciousness throughout the course of the day and night. Hence, when we 'realise' something at whatever hour, that something has bubbled up from somewhere inside us.

 

I am sure that the conscious mind gets in the way of 'good' art. Francis Bacon explained that he had no idea of the origin of his best work. He simply explored a suggestion of his mind.

 

If we take photographs 'consciously', we often sacrifice the novelty that Bacon was able to discover in his paintings. I try to take pictures unconsciously. I see something that grabs my attention, I point and shoot without looking through the viewfinder. Most results are rubbish, but once in a while something unexpected arises.

 

I will track down the book.

"So, and he writes a book to discover himself? Or is that for living?"

 

It never fails to amaze and amuse me how easy it is to write drivel and then find people who confuse it with deep thought.

 

Try repeating this mantra to yourself: the universe is not only simpler than I imagine, it's simpler than I CAN imagine..........<div></div>

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

 

William Shakespeare, "Hamlet", Act 1 scene 5<div></div>

Jeff,

 

Thanks. I believe your recommendation is meant to be helpful to people who are open to thinking of this sort, and I thank you for sending it. I will check around town for the bbook.

"William Shakespeare, "Hamlet", Act 1 scene 5"

 

Proof, if proof were needed, of how so many people confuse fantasy with reality. Shakespeare wrote fiction; none of his output has much, if any, relevance to the world as it really is or, indeed, was.<div></div>

There are other difficulties associated with this. That is, the deeper one delves into one's own self, the more one has the feeling that we all participate in the same self. Mystical, I know, possibly clap-trap, but it is a sense rather than a mundane fact. There is a different between the physical world and the words we use to describe it. Hence Magritte's 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe' and Shakepeare's 'For there is nothing neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so'.

Or is it just that too much thinking makes your head ache?<div></div>

If you can't see a connection between literary fiction and real life, there's not much to

discuss. As I first said, If you deplore navel-gazing, this stuff is just not your cup of tea.

 

I'll give you one point though: Shakespeare was not about factual reality but mostly about

how people have a tendency to allow their strongest emotions define reality for them. Such

people are flawed, as we all are to a degree. If Lady Macbeth's murderous greed, ambition,

and awareness of guilt can't be useful to students of human nature, human nature must

not count for much.<div></div>

Harvey--

 

Just as a reaction to your comments on old Bill Shakespeare, though we are physical creatures living in a physical world, our minds process information not only through fact but through fiction. That is, we're symbol makers. If we weren't, we'd have no numbers or letters--just characters in a story are made up, so are eights and one-halfs--but we also grasp the world through emotional and intuitional cues. The experiences of characters have enough resonance with our own experiences that we gain an intuitive understanding of our lives through their experience, even though they spring from human imagination.

 

Fiction may be a mental construct, but it is a construct that reflects truths about reality--that's speaking of literature on Shakespeare's level. It sounds like fiction does not speak to you, but, for those receptive of great works, the insights these works can bring to life can be profound.

Well said Steve.

 

7/7

I believe that we are indeed symbol makers, and tool makers. The natural result of that is photography, the camera is the tool and the photo is the symbol. Taking it one step further I see Signifiers as important in terms of relations between ourselves. For example, there may be constructs we use, logical or not, fictional or not, religious or not. However all those constructs utilize Signifiers.

 

Your 'self' is inextricabley wrapped up in finding your self. Some people do that without thinking about it, some people analyse every element of it, and some just deny it ever existed.

 

I think photography can help us to find many things in life, and the 'self' is one of those things.

 

Cheers.

"Fiction may be a mental construct, but it is a construct that reflects truths about reality"

 

That's one view but not one that I can agree with. There is a common word for those who cannot distinguish between fiction and reality and the word is 'insane'.

 

I like fiction, hell, I even write it, but fiction does not reflect reality at any but the most basic level. I find myself worrying that too many people think that fiction is a guide to how they should behave in real life when it is an escape from real life.

 

Fiction is the invention of the author. The complexities and, more importantly, the banalities of reality are stripped away in the cause of entertainment, which is good, provided you perceive it as entertainment.

 

Shakespeare was consciously writing fiction: 'sound and fury signifying nothing' if you want a quote, and bloody good at it he was too. But there was no intent on his part, I'm sure, to pretend that his characters words or actions bore any relationship to reality. He wrote in verse for the most part and set his plays in odd milleux to drive home the point.

 

This idea that fiction reflects reality is a very new one, dating only from the early 20th century. Before that, fiction was seen as one thing and reality as quite another. I feel that we should realise that our ancestors were quite right to make that distinction and keep to it.<div></div>

I think we'll have to agree to disagree here.

 

I think fiction as written by Joyce, Faulkner, and Woolf, to name a few, are stunning intellectual achievements and contain within them truths about the nature of consciousness, history, psychology, and the nature of human existence that can only be accessed through the experience of reading, of living within that character. Just because the reader allows themself to live within a character's skin doesn't mean they can't differentiate between ordinary reality and a fictional character. That happens sometimes, but I think most of us can spend some time in Leopold Bloom's mind without losing touch with reality. To assume otherwise rather underestimates the intelligence of others; it's a popular but miserly opinion.

 

If we read carefully and with empathy, we are granted a window into universal human experiences, a tradition that dates well back to the classic Greek dramas.

Seems like there's a useful split developing in this thread. Many of us have come out and

said that the Hattersley approach seems at least understandable. Harvey says it's tripe,

which is fine. My question for Harvey is: What do you expect from your practice of

photography? and/or, perhaps, Where do you place the limits of photography as a

revelatory tool?

"If we read carefully and with empathy, we are granted a window into universal human experiences, a tradition that dates well back to the classic Greek dramas."

 

That way, madness lies. Fiction distorts the human condition not illuminates it. You have a vested interest in promoting this theory because you're involved with the theatre. Still, if you hold your opinion in private and don't frighten the horses, that's all right with me.

 

"What do you expect from your practice of photography? and/or, perhaps, Where do you place the limits of photography as a revelatory tool?"

 

I expecct nothing from it. I used to take pictures because people paid me for them, now I take pictures because I like the shapes and colours. You know, sometimes a picture is just a picture.<div></div>

Yes. I admit it. You've stumbled onto the conspiracy. Those of us writing fiction and drama are all in on a plot of convince our audience that our work contains "great truths" to ensure we have an audience. Let's just keep that between you and me, okay? *shhh*

 

Well, seriously, if this way madness lies--and you know that's a quote from "King Lear"--then there are good number of Nobel Laureates out there wearing tinfoil hats.

 

I would argue that great fiction can lead you sanity, if for no other reason than experiencing great fictional characters is the closest we can get to living within another person's head, and that helps us understand that we are not alone in our feelings and fears. It is an illusion, surely, but the best fiction is grounded in reality, or else it rings false.

 

Fiction may not fulfill this function for you, and I'm sorry about that because you're missing out. But I suspect the authors of great literary works will be shared and treasured long after both our names have evaporated.

 

Great photographs have within them great stories, even if they're not overt, and they speak to us as does great poetry--the penultimate image of a poem or image containing a nexus of meaning. John Crowe Ransom called it the objective correlative: the instant that creates and compensatory response in the reader or viewer.

 

Which is to say: when it rocks.